Introduction

Friends, if your heart feels a little frayed at the edges today, you’re in good company. The week has been loud. Headlines tug at our attention, to-do lists steal our sleep, and relationships can feel like tightropes over troubled waters. Still, underneath the noise, our souls whisper a simple request: Please, let there be peace. A place to belong. A people who know my name and carry my burdens. A family, not by bloodline, but by grace line.

Into that ache, the Lord sets a table. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians lays out chairs for people who once stood on opposite sides of the room. He announces something astonishing about Jesus—something that brings hope to every home and healing to every heart. Christ creates a new humanity. He gives us a new seat. He sends us as peacemakers. What if the church, our church, embraced that vision so fully that fences fell and friendships formed in their place? What if Christ’s peace didn’t just visit our hearts for an hour on Sunday, but lingered on our porches, at our workstations, in our classrooms, and around our dinner tables?

J.I. Packer once wrote, “Adoption is the highest privilege that the gospel offers: higher even than justification.” (J.I. Packer, Knowing God) Adoption means a Father who never forgets a face and never misplaces a name. Adoption means brothers and sisters where there used to be strangers. Adoption means a family that Christ himself formed—one new humanity with his peace stitched into every seam.

And think of this: Ephesians tells us we are seated with Christ in the heavenly realms. Picture that seat. It’s steady when the ground is shaky. It changes how we see our neighbors, our needs, our next steps. From that seat, we carry a quiet authority and a calm assurance. From that seat, we live heavenward so that peace lands on our streets. Could that be the gift God offers us today—a fresh view, a fresh voice, and a fresh victory over old hostilities?

Before we open our Bibles, breathe in this promise: you belong in Christ, and in Christ we belong to one another. Shame doesn’t get the last word. Labels do not lead us. The Lord does. Christ is our peace, and he hasn’t lost his touch.

Scripture Reading: Ephesians 2:14-16 (NIV) “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.”

Opening Prayer: Father, thank you for setting a table of grace for weary people. Thank you for Jesus, our peace. By your Spirit, quiet our fears, soften our hearts, and gather us as one family. Lift our eyes to the seat you’ve given us with Christ. Let that vantage shape our words, our worries, and our willingness to forgive. Where walls have stood for years, make doors. Where memories sting, pour mercy. Knit us together with cords of kindness and courage. Teach us to live heavenward and to carry your peace into every conversation and every corner of our community. Speak, Lord, and make us attentive. Heal, Lord, and make us whole. In the name of Jesus, our Peace, Amen.

Christ Makes One New Humanity

We long for a people to stand with us. We carry old labels and deep hurts. Jesus answers that ache by making a people who share his life. He brings scattered lives into one story. He brings former outsiders near. He gives us a shared name, a shared hope, and a shared call.

Ephesians shows how this happens. The text points to Jesus himself. Peace comes from him and through him. He does not hand out a feeling and step away. He steps in, bears our weight, and holds us together. The church does not unite itself by talent or taste. The church gathers around a living Lord who keeps us near.

“He himself is our peace.” Those words sit at the center of the passage. Peace has a face. Peace wears scars. The calm we want does not begin with perfect plans or careful rules. It begins with the presence of Jesus who stands between enemies and says, “Come to me.” He carries human flesh, so he knows our wounds. He took the blows that anger throws. His cross cut off the power of payback and pride. When we come to him, we do not bring a resume. We bring our need. He holds the pieces of our stories in his hands and makes a whole. This is why worship matters. We come close to him, and he pulls us close to each other. This is why prayer matters. We talk to him, and his peace works its way into our voice and our steps. This is why forgiveness becomes possible. We look at his mercy and find words we could not form on our own. He is our peace in the heart and our peace in the room. He does not fade when tensions rise. He stays and keeps us.

The passage says he tore down a wall that stood between people. In the ancient world there was a barrier in the temple courts. It signaled distance. It told some to keep out. Jesus faced every wall that keeps people apart. He faced pride, fear, shame, and long years of suspicion. He faced the old stories that kept neighbors apart and families bitter. On the cross he did what no leader, law, or slogan could do. He broke the claim of hostility on the human family. The church now lives as a place without that wall. So we keep space at our tables for those we used to ignore. We plan meals that mix ages, languages, and life stages. We ask names. We learn histories. We give and receive help. We practice quiet habits that clear rubble from the floor of our life together. We tell the truth when we hurt each other, and we seek repair. We stop using inside jokes that shut people out. We refuse thin unity that depends on sameness, and we grow thick unity that depends on Christ. Every time we cross a room to listen, that wall stays down. Every time we choose patience, that wall stays down. Every time we welcome with joy, that wall stays down.

Paul says Jesus set aside the code of commands and rules that separated groups. He did not toss out God’s heart or wisdom. He fulfilled the aim of the law and opened a fresh way to belong. Many of those rules served as boundary markers for a season. They named a people and held them in line for a time. In Jesus the door of grace swings wide. The badge of belonging is union with him. Faith brings us in. The Spirit seals us. Our life together now follows the law of love. We still learn obedience. We still turn from sin. And we refuse to build new boundary markers that give power to taste, class, culture, or tribe. Circumstances shift from place to place. Christ stays the same, and so does our access to God. Each person comes near by grace. Each person stands on the same ground. This has real shape. We confess the same creed. We pass through the same waters of baptism. We share the same table. We sit under the same word. We correct one another with the same mercy. Leaders serve, not for status, and members serve, not for applause. Rules still help order our life, and they always serve love. The cross keeps us from turning preferences into gates. The Spirit helps us keep the main thing at the center.

Paul also says Jesus formed a new human family in himself and brought all of us back to God through the cross. This is more than a truce. This is new creation. Old hostilities lose their power when they meet a new people shaped by the wounds and the triumph of Jesus. Hostility dies at the cross because sin meets justice there, and sinners meet mercy there. We are gathered into one body, which means we hurt together and heal together. Your joy lifts me. My tears move you. We carry each other’s needs to the Father. We grieve cleanly and we celebrate freely. We open our homes and let strangers become kin. We share skills and share stories so no one stands alone. We seek out those who have been pushed to the edges and bring them toward the center of care. We learn to speak to each other in ways that fit the gospel we confess. Soft words when anger rises. Honest words when harm is done. Hopeful words when fear spreads. We do not wait for the world to be kind before we live this way. We begin here, in this body, and the witness spills out. Neighbors see grace with skin on it. Enemies hear their names in our prayers. The city gets a sign of the world to come. And as we keep our eyes on Jesus, the one who made this family, our unity stays alive. He keeps killing hostility. He keeps raising love. He keeps making people new.

Seated with Christ Reframes Our Authority and Perspective

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